Crimson Hollow

by Andrea Pearson

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.” I didn’t need to say anything else for Nicole to know how much it upset me that I hadn’t heard from him. My college self would have either freaked out by now or moved on to another guy. Current self was pretending not to be hurt or offended. Sooner or later, though, I’d need to face the feelings I’d pushed onto the back burner.

  We ended the call, and I set my phone down. Brenda must’ve overheard the last part of my conversation because she stepped into my bedroom and gave me her best stink eye.

  “Just who was Nicole asking about?”

  I chuckled, then regretted it, holding my arm around my aching ribs. “Abel. I swear I’ve mentioned him before. He’s the guy I’ve been working with on special cases lately.”

  Brenda nodded. She remembered. Good—out of the doghouse on that one. If I hadn’t told my mom about a guy, we would have had big problems.

  “Give me an update. What’s new? I could tell from your voice that you have feelings for him.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I do.” I didn’t want to mention the L word—it felt premature when my mom so badly wanted me to get married. I didn’t want to get her hopes up. “He’s . . .” Well, what was he? I had no idea. “He’s emotionally unavailable most of the time.”

  Brenda frowned. “That’s definitely a problem. Have you had any sort of discussion about where you stand with each other?”

  I shook my head. “No, not really. I mean, we’ve had some pretty . . .” What had we had? “I know he has feelings for me—judging by how he treats me and the fact that he’s willing to do whatever I need him to do—but I don’t know. I definitely have feelings for him.”

  I wish the guy would just commit to being there or not being there. Preferably, he’d choose being there. But I’d vowed never to push a guy into anything with me again, and so far, I hadn’t regretted making that vow.

  “Where does his family live?”

  I slowly shook my head. I wasn’t sure how to tell Brenda about what happened with Abel’s family. They’d been brutally murdered—minus his mom—and that wasn’t exactly something you just dropped into someone’s lap.

  After some deliberation, with my mom waiting patiently, I decided just to tell her everything I knew. It would make life easier, as I wouldn’t have to remember what I’d told her and what I hadn’t.

  “Abel’s job isn’t exactly a nine-to-five. He disappears all the time doing work for people. He basically takes care of threats.” I hesitated. “I don’t know how to say this, Mom. He’s kind of like an assassin for hire.” I put my face in my hands, trying to control my stupid emotions. “You see what’s going on? I know he’s a good guy. I know he is. But I also know that what he does for a living isn’t exactly something I want to, you know, marry into. His skillset is unique, and it’s what he knows. How can I ask him—?”

  Brenda put her hand on mine. “He’s not asking you to do anything just yet. Calm down, give it some time, and see where things take you. Don’t pressure him into making any changes or decisions.”

  I nodded. Moms. They’re great to have around.

  “Mention of his family made you hesitate.”

  Of course she noticed that. “Yeah. He had to watch them get tortured to death—all but his mom. It’s obviously done a lot of emotional damage to him.”

  My mom’s face paled. “What were they trying to get out of him?”

  “A job—they wanted him to do a job. He’s given up on it, though, and is now trying to find his mom.” Relief flooded over me as I realized that was where he’d gone. “That must be what he’s doing right now. And naturally, he wouldn’t be able to contact me. Not if he felt he was close to her.”

  Brenda nodded, then patted my good arm. “He’ll come around when he’s ready.”

  I thanked her, and she helped me settle into my bed for a much-needed cat nap.

  I was grateful I’d gotten that rest in when Nicole called me later in the day, absolutely furious.

  Chapter Nine

  “You downplayed your situation!” she practically shrieked. “I mean, here I was, thinking that your ribs were bruised, and sure, it hurts to breathe, but Brenda says you can barely even walk. You could barely get out of bed! And your hand. You had surgery on it, for crying out loud. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry. There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re up in Montana, and I’m down here.”

  “Lizzie, I can do something about it. I can get you some of that sap from Jacob.”

  I shook my head. “No way. We’re not bothering him—he’s off living his own life.”

  The sap Nicole was referring to had healing properties. It had been a long time since I’d used it, but it required a lot of sleep in order to work. I was already sleeping a lot and couldn’t afford to leave the people around me exposed any longer.

  I might not be able to do much, but at least the amulet was functioning, especially now that I was off narcotics. I’d be able to warn people that danger was coming, and if I had somebody nearby to help, I could destroy any hounds that approached. But with the sap? I would be completely out of it for who knew how long until it had time to heal all my injuries. It was absolutely out of the question.

  I explained all this to Nicole. She got even more frustrated with me, but I still begged her to stop worrying and to focus on staying healthy for her baby. She was due in December. I could tell that only annoyed her even more—Nicole is not one you go around telling what to do.

  After explaining to her for twenty minutes about my worries where the hounds were concerned—how having her here plus my parents would only give them so much more fuel to use against me—she huffed in exasperation, then said, “Okay, fine. I can see where you’re coming from. But . . . just . . . promise you’ll let me know if you change your mind.”

  I definitely would.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, my phone rang bright and early. I almost knocked it off my nightstand in an effort to answer it before the annoying jingle woke everyone else up. Grabbing the phone knocked the wind out of me, though, and I gasped in pain.

  “Hello?” I breathed.

  I held the phone away from my mouth so they wouldn’t hear my heavy breathing. Maybe I should have had Nicole come. I brushed that thought away as the man on the other end of the line introduced himself as the Payson fire chief and started explaining a situation he had on his hands.

  “I assume you’ve heard already about the fire down here. We need your assistance as soon as possible.” He rushed on, not giving me a moment to interject. “I know of the situation with your ribs and hand—Chief O’Hare made sure I was aware of it when I called to get your number.”

  I was surprised he didn’t already have my number—I’d made sure all of the local departments knew. ’Course, Payson wasn’t a big city and they rarely had anything that would need a Fire Impeder’s help. They probably had put the number somewhere easy to overlook.

  The fire chief continued. “We’re prepared to do everything we can to get you here quickly and as pain free as possible, so we’re sending a helicopter with our best pilot. I hope you don’t mind, but he’s on his way now. We’ll get you onto a stretcher and have volunteers carry you around wherever you need to be.”

  I hesitated. They’d obviously put a lot of thought into this.

  “If we weren’t completely desperate, I wouldn’t even ask you to help. But the fire is surrounding the Scout camp and we have over two hundred kids there right now, all of them trapped. We can’t get them out without your help. We wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

  I chewed on my lip, not really needing to think it over before knowing my answer would be yes. If they helicoptered me in and did as he said, it was worth the pain and discomfort I’d experience to save innocent lives.

  It was probably absolute insanity, but I had to do everything I could to make up for the lives lost while I was in Iraq.

  He was true to his word.
The helicopter landed fifteen minutes later on my street just outside my house. I was grateful the road was large enough there, especially since the next nearest spot that would have been large enough was a couple of blocks away.

  Two men hopped out of the helicopter, grabbed a wheelchair, and approached the house. I watched through the window from where I sat on the couch, ignoring as my mom fussed around me. She hadn’t been happy when I’d told her what I’d agreed to do, but as soon as I’d explained the stakes, she recognized why I’d said yes. I was grateful for that. My mother had always been reasonable. That didn’t stop her from worrying, of course.

  Brenda made sure that we had plenty of food for the flight down to Mount Nebo.

  “I just want to make sure that the pilot doesn’t have a blood sugar drop and causes a crash. That would put Lizzie in a much worse situation than she is already in.”

  One of the men grinned at that until he realized Brenda was completely serious. He scuffed his toe on the sidewalk in discomfort, and I rolled my eyes at my mom, deciding not to point out that if the helicopter crashed, I most likely would not survive. That definitely wouldn’t make her feel better.

  I did my best to hide my pain as the two men helped me onto the wheelchair and wheeled me out of the house. Mrs. Russell was watching from her front porch, and so were several other neighbors. A helicopter landing on the street and me being wheeled out on a stretcher? Of course that would worry them.

  I grabbed Brenda’s arm. “Mom, would you tell my neighbors I’m fine? Let them know what’s going on?”

  Brenda nodded. “Of course, dear.”

  The flight to the Scout camp was exhilarating. I’d never been in a helicopter before, and even though I was in a lot of pain, I still enjoyed the ride immensely.

  Everything quickly became obscured by smoke. Flames licked at the edge of the burned land. I reached out, but couldn’t grasp at them well enough to extinguish anything.

  We landed next to a lake in the middle of the Scout camp, and several people rushed forward to open the doors and pull out my wheelchair. The moment the doors were open, the heat blasted against me even more strongly than the high temps that had hit me in Iraq.

  The smoke was bad—very bad. I started coughing immediately, which made me double over in pain, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

  A couple of women quickly put a mask on me and piped in clean air, then helped me into a protective suit similar to the ones firefighters wear. Once I wasn’t nearly crying from the pain, I instructed my volunteers to take me wherever the fire was the strongest. Usually, there would be an impromptu command center, but I had the feeling they’d been fighting the fires in such a panic, trying to protect the kids, that one hadn’t been set up. I was correct. Luckily, though, they all seemed to know where the fires were the worst.

  Apparently, the flames had moved much faster than usual, not allowing anyone time to get out in vehicles. The one passenger helicopter they had access to had been sent to pick me up as soon as they realized the Scouts would be trapped at the camp.

  The moment I had exited the helicopter, the pilot began taking Scouts away, but with over two hundred kids there, it would take forever to get everyone out.

  We reached the flames at their strongest point, and I started reaching out magically and extinguishing the little sparks as they fled toward the camp. As usual, it was hot, difficult work, and even with volunteers carting me all over the place, I quickly ran out of physical reserves. The pain in my ribs tripled, nearly making me pass out repeatedly. And still, I fought the flames.

  I recognized I was overdoing it when my ability to sense the things around me disappeared. Soon, I could no longer tell that the mask was still on my face, nor that I was even wearing a protective suit.

  The good part of overdoing it, though—I no longer felt the heat nearly as much. I ended up closing my eyes and reaching out magically, waving my good hand when I needed the men to move me around.

  Three hours after we began, I’d extinguished enough flames for the real fire fighters to get a solid grip on the fire. By that time, I was as limp as a newborn baby. I couldn’t raise my head or even my hand anymore. Talking was out of the question—I couldn’t form a coherent enough thought to converse.

  I finally relaxed into blissful blackness after hearing we’d been able to save the camp and all the Scouts in it.

  Chapter Eleven

  I woke up just as they were putting me on the helicopter. I heard them saying something about Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, and I tried to protest, telling them just to take me home, but no sound came out when I opened my mouth. Had I even opened my mouth? I couldn’t tell.

  The next time I woke up, I was in the hospital. Man, I was getting so tired of being in hospitals. This was the third time in a week I’d been in one. It was ridiculous.

  Luckily, I wasn’t there long before they discharged me. It took about four hours for my senses to return, and they realized there wasn’t anything else I needed or that they could do for me, and Brenda and Justin took me home.

  When we got back to my place, Brenda helped me change into clothes that didn’t smell like smoke. I wanted to shower, but I was so incredibly over-exhausted from the day’s events that I opted to change my sheets the next day instead. I settled into bed with my phone in hand.

  As soon as my parents stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind them, I dialed Nicole’s number. Talk about eating humble pie. I was prepared to beg for some of that sap stuff if necessary.

  She didn’t answer, though, and I set my phone aside, wishing Sia would at least come and visit. She was probably hanging out with my parents in the living room. I could text my mom and ask her to open my door for the cat, but I didn’t want to disturb them when they’d been waiting on me hand and foot so much lately.

  I picked up my phone again, playing around with it, wishing the loneliness would go away. I found myself missing Abel so very much. Should I call him? How would he respond if I did? I knew him well enough by then to recognize when he needed space. The fact that he hadn’t called yet said he needed alone time. What he did was dangerous, and I could possibly put his life in jeopardy if I tried calling him.

  As soon as that thought struck me, I set my phone down, resolving not to bother him. He would call when he was ready. It made my heart ache a little, though, to think of him and the time we’d spent together and how close we’d gotten.

  After I had been alone for a couple of hours, my mom and dad sat me up so I could eat the soup Brenda had prepared for dinner. She hadn’t even asked me what I wanted, but it was absolutely perfect. My mom had been a nurse for quite some time before she decided to have a family and put her nursing skills to the practical test. She must’ve known that these kinds of injuries, and the medications I’d been on previously, would affect my appetite. As I said, soup was perfect.

  While I ate, my parents sat at the foot of my bed and discussed the baseball game my dad had been watching. I could tell they’d been discussing me previously and now didn’t know what to talk about. How awkward. It wasn’t like I’d walked in on their conversation. Why were they being so weird? And what did they have to discuss that concerned me, but I couldn’t be a part of?

  After dinner, I convinced them to take me out to the living room so we could watch a movie together. I was still hungry, and Justin went and got food from the local Wendy’s, and we enjoyed dipping French fries into our Frosties. That was something Chief O’Hare and his wife had introduced me to a while back. My parents had thought it was weird, but as expected, they’d caught on just like nearly everyone else. Hey, people eat pineapple on pizza. Why not dip French fries into Frosties? It’s basically the same concept. Sweet and salty together. Except pineapple on pizza is disgusting, and French fries with Frosties is amazing.

  Once the movie was over, my parents assisted me back to bed, and I fell asleep pretty much instantly. Maybe having a free conscience helped. If I hadn’t gone to take care of
those kids, I would’ve died from guilt.

  My mom awakened me sometime later, gently shaking my knee. Luckily, she had the sense not to touch my shoulder. That would have hurt a lot.

  I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. I groaned, not even attempting to sit up. “What’s going on?” My hand flew to my amulet. It was silent.

  “Nothing to be alarmed about,” Brenda said. “Nicole and Austin are here. They brought something for you.”

  With Brenda’s help, I sat up, hastily pulling my gross hair back. I so couldn’t wait for a shower. I nodded, and Brenda opened my bedroom door for Nicole and Austin.

  Only Nicole came in, and she shook her head when she saw me. “I told your mom you didn’t need to doll yourself up. I don’t mind seeing you with your hair messy.”

  I smiled. “Oh, honey, if you think this is me dolled up, you don’t remember much from college.”

  Nicole chuckled and sat on the bed next to me.

  I blinked away my exhaustion, trying to clear the cobwebs from my mind. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

  Nicole patted my knee. “I got some sap. I knew you would come to your senses eventually. And when you did, I wanted to be here.”

  I mock glared at her, then gave it up and grinned. “I actually got smart about five hours ago. I even tried calling you, but you didn’t answer. How did you get the sap?”

  “It was easy. I texted Jacob, and he brought it to me.”

  “Oh, technology. How much it’s blessed our lives.”

  Nicole laughed. “Well, he didn’t answer right away, and that got me worried. Silly man—he thinks he’s got things to do with his life.”

  “Don’t we all,” I murmured.